UK City Breaks – Realization of a Lifelong Dream

While the nearest I’ve been to Britain is through movies and pictures, I much prefer going there through another route; books – through short stories, poems and other forms of literature. Well, it could be the old English countryside but it is nonetheless vividly described with such romanticism and charm; they’ve become places where I always want getting lost to.

My companion while I travel were Wuthering Heights on the Moorish marsh, The Other Boleyn Girl while admiring the rural landscape of medieval England, Tintern Abbey through the banks of the River Wye and of course, Sherlock Holmes through the streets of old London. All these and many other books depicting the British landscape had instilled in me the longing to walk on those cobblestones and see the beauty of patchwork quilt of green fields with my own eyes.

Love for art

Imagine the hysteria I caused when hubby told me to browse for UK city breaks that we can book for on  a  semester break – I was like an attention-deprived toddler screaming my heart out for a lollipop!

In my head I am already planning where to go, what to do – first, to be inspired by some of the world’s greatest works of art, we’d go visiting: David Hockney at the Tate Modern and Tate Britain, and Salts Mill in Yorkshire, William Tate at the Walker Art Gallery in Liverpool, John Constable at the National Gallery in London, LS Lowry at the Lowry in Salford, Greater Manchester and most of all JMW Turner at the Petworth House in Petworth in West Sussex.

And what about installations and creations of Pablo Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, Mark Rothko? We’ll visit Tate Liverpool, Tate St Ives, Cornwall, Tate Britain, London, and Tate Modern, London to see their works…for free!

But, with just a short stay it would be impossible to do everything in one go. I still have to convince hubby for at least 2 weeks of hopping here and there to have everything else done. There are a lot of other whyfors the UK is a top tourist destination, aside from the arts as cited.

Second, and needless to say, photography is one of the other reason why I love to travel in general. That I am able to take a chunk of reality in that particular moment that may never happen again through photos is my motivation. So where are the most picturesque places in the UK for perfect photos?

Here’s my list of what to see when planning UK City Breaks:

World Heritage Sites

Stonehenge, Wiltshire. Still an awe to this day, the prehistoric monument has baffled every visiting individual at how our ancestors were able to carry these humongous stones at where they stand now.

Tower Bridge at Night, London. This bascule and suspension bridge over the River Thames is most picturesque at dusk.

The Jurassic Coast, Dorset. One of Britain’s many World Heritage Site worth visiting in this lifetime. It is consisted of Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous cliffs, spanning the Mesozoic Era, documenting million years of geological history. How could one say no to this piece of creation?

Seven Sisters, Sussex. A series of chalk cliffs by the English Channel, occurring naturally as a result of erosion. This is living proof that yes, our Creator knows and has crafted his masterpieces well.

Isle of Harris, Scotland. Talk about an oxymoron of sorts in the most beautiful sense. White-sand beaches spectacularly laid out in front of views of snow-peaked mountains in the distance.

Wastwater Lake, Cumbria. England’s deepest lake and coincidentally the title of the play my daughter takes part in.

Related read: Best places to visit in the UK

Castles

Here’s a list: Warwick Castle in Warwirckshire, Bodiam Castle in East Sussex, St Michael’s Mount in Cornwall, Stokesay Castle in Shropshire, Leeds Castle in Kent, the Tower of London in London, Cardiff Castle in Wales and of course, Windsor Castle in Berkshire where the queen resides. I am sure there’s a lot more to list down, with 400 to be found only in Wales, even a whole month won’t be enough to see all.

Wheew! Short UK City Breaks will definitely not suffice to see the grandeur that is Britain, there’s still so many to see and there’s so little space in this humble blog to list all of them. But, you know what I really want to see the most? Jane Austen’s House in Hampshire. You can never just make a hopeless romantic forget her heroines.

photos courtesy of: https://travellers-stories.com/